“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“For most of my life,” he answered, “the heights were my escape. Trees and rooftops and the undersides of bridges were the only places I could relax, but now, even that is lost to me.” He lifted the bottle and took a mouthful. “Now, whenever I look out over an edge, all I hear is the sound of bodies hitting the ground.” Another mouthful. “I used to think that I would never fall, and now some strange part of me wonders what it is like. Wonders what would go through my mind in those few seconds of weightlessness before everything went dark.”
A quiver ran through her, and Zarrah moved closer, reaching for him. “Keris, please come back from the edge.”
“Regret, I suppose,” he said. “For things that I have done. For things that I have not done.”
Why was he saying these things? “Keris …”
“I cannot change the past, but the future is yet in my hands. I need to go back to Maridrina.” The bottle slipped from his hands, falling into darkness. “But there are some things that cannot be left Zarrah as she exited the caves and climbed a ladder onto the cliffundone.”
top. Darkness had fallen, the sky black with cloud cover, but instinct drew her eyes to the rebel Zarrah reached for him right as he turned, and then she was in his arms.
She’d come looking for him, looking for this, yet for a heartbeat, the fear that she’d almost lost him held her frozen in place. He reached icy fingers up to cup her cheek, and Zarrah pressed her own palm over top of them. “I told you that I needed to decide whether to stop now and endure the pain of what might’ve been or to keep going, knowing that there will come a moment when I lose it all.” She The man’s hand moved to gesture deeper into the canyon. “You should have an escort. It’s treacherous sucked in a ragged breath. “I choose you. I want to live every moment with you that I can, no matter that I know circumstance will wrench us apart, because I know we’ll fight our way back to each other’s arms again.”
Keris was silent, wind and snow whirling about them in a wild frenzy, and then his lips were on keeping away from the yawning black space to her right as she followed the faintly visible footprints. hers, her desire surging, the chill biting her skin falling away.
She buried her fingers in his hair, tasting the whiskey on his breath as his tongue delved into her mouth, the intensity making her knees tremble.
This was the kiss she remembered. The kiss she’d been craving every second they’d been apart.
The kiss she’d needed like breath since she’d been back in his presence. No hesitation. No holding back.
Instead, Keris claimed her.
Though in truth, she’d never stopped being his.
A moan dragged from her lips as he ran his hands down her back, over her ass, walking her slowly backward with no care for the fact death reached up at them from all sides. His fingers found the buttons of her coat, pulling it loose and dragging it off her. Her shirt followed, lost to the wind, but Zarrah didn’t care as his lips moved down her throat, teeth scraping her skin, and tongue leaving lines of fire in its wake.
His mouth closed over her tight nipple, sucking it deep, and Zarrah cried out even as she pushed his hands down to her belt, feeling him fumble with the buckle and then jerk it free. She stepped on the heels of her own boots to pull them off, Keris dragging her trousers down her legs. Then she was naked but for the cloak fastened to her neck, the fabric floating behind her on the wind.
The air was like ice, but Zarrah barely felt it as he lifted her, her legs around his waist as he His shadow turned, but he didn’t step back from the edge. The outline of a bottle was visible in onewalked away from the cliff, laying her down on a flat boulder. She gasped at the chill of the snow against the back of her head, melting into her hair, the wind lashing at her naked sex as he unbuckled
“What are you doing?” she demanded, edging out onto the outcropping, which was slick with snow.his belt, a shadowy god against the snow and night.
She reached for him, but Keris caught her wrists, pinning them to the rock. Zarrah instinctively knew what he wanted, and she spread her thighs wide, a sob of pleasure tearing from her lips as he drove into her slick body.
Always, their lovemaking had focused on her pleasure. On her body. And she realized now that it wasn’t out of a desire to manipulate or control her, as the Usurper had claimed, but out of a need to please her. A need to feel worthy of her. She had made a thousand demands of him, and he’d met each and every one.
And all he needed in return was her. Proof that she was his, that no matter what obstacles the world pushed between them, every part of her, mind, body, and soul, would always come back to him. Just as he would always come back to her.
That knowledge sent a flood of heat racing through her veins. Made her wrap her legs around his waist to pull him deeper with each thrust.
“Zarrah,” he groaned, fingers tightening on hers, the cold burning like fire against her flesh.
“I love you,” she breathed, tension building between her thighs, her body tightening around his cock. There was nothing about him that wasn’t worthy, nothing about him that didn’t deserve what he had. And what he had was her heart. “I love you more than life, Keris Veliant.”
His breath was hot against her throat, voice ragged as he said, “You’re mine.”
“Yours,” she gasped, the cold buttons on his coat brushing against her nipples and making her back arch. Each thrust bringing her closer to the edge of climax.
“Forever.” He bit her throat, and the slice of pain tipped her over, pleasure shattering her body and creating stars in the midnight sky. “Say it.” His voice filled her ears as she rocked her hips against him, tears rolling down her cheeks because nothing in her life had felt this good. “Say it, Zarrah. Say that you are mine forever, no matter where we are.”
“Yours,” she sobbed, wrenching her wrists from his grip and wrapping her arms around him.
“Yours forever. This life and the next, I am yours.”
Keris buried his face in her neck and slammed into her, her name repeating over and over as his body shuddered, heat flooding her core as he came in her. It pulled her over the edge again, pleasure
rolling over her body again and again, rendering her boneless and limp in his arms.
The wind howled, the snow beneath her melting to soak her cloak, but all she felt was Keris’s breath against her skin, the heat of his body on hers. Slowly, he lifted his head, finding her lips and kissing her. “I love you,” he whispered. “No matter what happens, no matter where we both must go, please remember that my heart is yours.”
A moan dragged from her lips as he ran his hands down her back, over her ass, walking her slowly There were no words that could capture what she felt, so Zarrah only kissed him. Drowned in the taste of him until shivers wracked her body and they were forced to retreat inside where it was warm, where they spent the night as though it were the first time.
throat, teeth scraping her skin, and tongue leaving lines
Not the last.
His mouth closed over her tight nipple, sucking it deep, and Zarrah cried out even as she pushed his please her. A need to feel worthy of her. She had made a thousand demands of him, and he’d met each Proof that she was his, that no matter what obstacles the world
“Forever.” He bit her throat, and the slice of pain tipped her over, pleasure shattering her body and
rolling over her body again and again, rendering her boneless and limp in his arms.